But maybe he could save me a trip to town. Going anywhere near city limits seemed risky today.
“I was hoping you might have time to run into town and pick up a bundle of steel fence posts at the Farm and Feed,” I said.
“Sure.” He nodded. “I’ll do it when I’m done with the paper.”
“He’s only read it twice already.” Mom rolled her eyes from the coffeepot.
“Just the one article about Winslow,” he argued. “The Nelsens did a piss-poor job on this one.”
I stepped closer to the island, leaning in to read over his shoulder. My gaze landed on her pretty face. The photo took up half the front page. Winn was dressed in a black uniform shirt, the top button choking her slim neck. Her hair was pulled back into a slick knot. Her expression was the definition of neutral.
The photo had to be ten years old. Maybe one taken at the academy.
“They might as well have called her a child.” Dad huffed and pushed the paper my way.
If the picture weren’t bad enough, the article certainly didn’t help. Below the headline—QUINCY CHIEF OF POLICE—was a column that read more like an exposé on small-town politics and favoritism.
No surprise, given the reporter listed was Emily Nelsen.
She loved to stir up drama. And when it came to the women in town who’d made it their mission to chase me, Emily was the leader of the pack. Good thing she didn’t know I’d hooked up with Winn. The article was bad enough already.
Emily’s parents owned the paper and the disdain for Walter Covington was as clear as the black-and-white ink on each page.
“Are you really surprised?” I asked Dad. “You know the Nelsens have always hated Covie. Ever since that squabble at the basketball game over the air horns.”
“That was seven years ago.”
“Does it matter? It could have been seventy and they’d still hold a grudge.”
The Nelsens had brought two air horns to a high school basketball game. My younger brother Mateo had been playing as a sophomore on the junior varsity team along with the Nelsens’ son. They’d run those goddamn air horns in the gymnasium for an hour straight. Finally, Walter had asked them to pipe down.
Our mayor had taken the hit for everyone in the bleachers that day. The articles printed since hadn’t been kind to Covie. I guess the Nelsens had no plans to be kind to Winn either.
The article left out most of her experience, though her age had been mentioned three times. Along with the word preferential.
Thirty was young for a chief of police. Had Dad not been on the hiring committee, I would have called it favoritism too.
What kind of experience could Winn have this far into her career? If something disastrous happened, I didn’t want the chief dropping the oars in the water when we’d need a steady captain at the helm. Maybe, despite a shitty delivery, Emily Nelsen had a point.
But since I wasn’t in the mood to argue with my father, I took my coffee mug from Mom and kissed her cheek. “Thanks for the refill.”
“Of course.” She squeezed my hand. “Dinner tonight? Knox isn’t working at the restaurant and Mateo doesn’t have a shift at the hotel. Lyla and Talia both said they could come over around six.”
“What about Eloise?”
“She’s coming over after the night clerk arrives at the hotel, probably around seven.”
It was harder and harder to get us all under her roof and at the same table these days. Mom lived for the rare occasion when she could feed all six of her children.
“I’ll do my best.” This was a busy time on the ranch and the idea of a family dinner already made me tired. But I didn’t want to disappoint Mom. “See you later. Thanks again for picking up those posts, Dad.”
He raised his own coffee mug, his attention rapt on the paper and a scowl fixed on his face.
A calico cat darted across the porch when I stepped outside. It ducked beneath the bottom stair, and when I reached the ground, I bent to see her tucked into a corner, nurturing a chorus of tiny meows.
Kittens. I’d have to take a few of them to my barn when they were weaned. Mom had at least ten cats already. But since they kept the mice away, none of us had ever minded grabbing the occasional bag of dry cat food.
I set out across the gravel, heading for the shop. The mammoth steel building was the largest on the ranch. With the barn and stables at one corner of the lot, Mom and Dad’s home at the other, the shop was the third corner of the triangle.
Our hired hands came here to clock in and out of their shifts. My office manager and bookkeeper each had a desk here, though they both preferred to work at the office space we kept in town.
My boots echoed on the concrete floor as I walked into the cavernous space. One of the swathers was parked just inside the sliding doors.
“Hiya, Griff.” My cousin, who worked for us as a mechanic, poked his head out from beneath the machine.
“Hey. How’s it coming?”
“Oh, I’ll get it fixed.”
“Good news.” I’d already bought two new tractors this spring. I’d prefer to bump another major equipment expense to the winter.
I kept walking as he went back to work on the machine. There was a mountain of office work for me to do today, either here or at home. We were short a man for the summer season and I was a week late on getting an ad into the classifieds with the paper. Avoiding Emily was the reason, but I couldn’t keep putting it off. Except one glance at my darkened office and I turned around for the door.
In total, the ranch consisted of ninety thousand acres. Most days, I was more of a business manager than an actual rancher. I still wore my boots and the belt buckle I’d won from a bareback ride at a high school rodeo. But the business degree I’d earned was put to use more often than my fencing pliers.
Not today.
June was a beautiful month in Montana and the blue sky beckoned. There was a cool breeze coming off the mountains, carrying the scent of pine trees and melting snow into the valley.
Sunshine and sweat would do my head a lot of good. I needed a day of hard, manual labor. Maybe if I exhausted myself, I’d sleep without dreaming of Winn.
I’d just reached the tool bench, ready to load up on a fresh roll of barbed wire and galvanized post clips, when my phone rang in my jeans pocket.
“Hey, Conor,” I answered.
“Griffin.”
My heart stopped at the panic in his voice, but my feet were already moving, jogging toward the shop door. “What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”
“It’s . . .”
“It’s what? Talk to me.”
“I started at Indigo Ridge. That corner post.”
“Yeah.” When I hit the gravel past the door, I was running. He might be young, but Conor didn’t get spooked. “Conor, tell me what happened?”
A sob escaped his mouth.
“I’m on my way,” I said but didn’t end the call. Instead, I got into my truck, let my phone connect to the Bluetooth and kept Conor on the line with me as I drove.
“Breathe, Conor.”
A whooshed breath escaped his lungs. My foot dug into the gas pedal as I raced to the turnoff.
“I’m just pulling off the gravel road,” I told him, taking the two-track path that ran along the fence line.